Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget -- I kept saying -- that we are all children of the
King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef -- they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

By Czeslaw Milosz
(1911 - 2004)

English version by Robert Hass
from New and Collected Poems 1931 - 2001, by Czeslaw Milosz
Poetry Chaikhana Home

Immobility and silence are not inactive. The flower fills the
space with
perfume, the candle -- with light. They do nothing yet they
change
everything by their mere presence."
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

"This pure mind... shines forever with the radiance of its
own perfection.
But most people are not aware of it, and think that mind is just
the
faculty that sees, hears, feels, and knows. Blinded by their own
sight,
hearing, feeling, and knowing, they don't perceive the radiance
of the
source. If they could eliminate all conceptual thinking, this
source would
appear, like the sun rising..."
~ Huang-po

Whatever you've been doing, you're using your mind to do it. And
your
mind will always fool you. It will make you believe you're
getting
somewhere. You're becoming something great. But it's really the
ego. It
is the ego that is controlling the mind.
~ Robert Adams

The entire conversation around awakening, awareness, satsang,
advaita,
enlightenment, nonduality, etc. was a huge distraction from Love.
It is
only when I saw, very recently, the pride of *wanting to be
special* that
I realized how lost I was. I cannot be special. I can only be
kind, loving,
generous, honest, loyal, humble and diligent in my effort to
distinguish
the difference between Love and fear.
~ Benjamin Smythe on Facebook